Trusting A Sheikh (Playgrounds of Power 1)

by Rosie Pike

  "Okay, that'll be £70."

  Chloe hurriedly handed over the money – all cash. She'd watched enough spy movies to know not to use credit cards when ‘on the run’, and as she was now living her life by the old maxim ‘you're not paranoid if someone is out to get you’, it seemed like the right thing to do.

  "Thanks," she said, walking out of the shop. The teenage checkout attendant didn't reply, but slumped down and picked up a magazine instead. Normally, Chloe would have been irritated by that kind of behavior, but given the circumstances, she didn't pay it another moment's thought.

  She sheltered under a bus stop from the cold, blustery November wind as she quickly pulled the cellphone from its sparse, spartan packaging, holding the green call button down to power the unit up. It was quite a shock to be using a phone with actual buttons again, but hell, the battery life would definitely be better…

  Before she'd powered down her own phone, she'd taken Rashid's number out and written it on the back of the same piece of paper that Tariq had given her, and she didn't hesitate – once the standard Nokia jingle had played – before punching his digits in.

  Chloe normally didn't stray too far from her usual gentrified haunts of Mayfair, Chelsea – and on the few occasions that she decided to ‘slum’ it with her friends, perhaps the cheaper, and edgier haunts of Brixton Market. Today, however, she had decided that, just like with her fancy clothes and credit cards, she needed to dispense with that corner of her life – at least for the time being. So, instead of being surrounded by upmarket boutique clothing shops, or lost in a sea of marauding fashionista tourists hopping from expensive store to expensive store like a pack of materialistic locusts, Chloe found herself in the rather less salubrious surroundings of Elephant and Castle, near the Underground station.

  She looked around edgily before jamming the hard edged Nokia phone to her ear with no idea what she was looking out for, or what she would do if she saw it. After all, she'd come to one of the most ethnically diverse areas of London precisely to lose herself in an area that no one would think to look for her. The flipside of that was – clearly – that her potential Arab pursuers were hardly going to stick out like a sore thumb in an area where walking around without at least a heavy tan made you the unusual one.

  "Hello?"

  "Rashid, it's Chloe. We met earlier on at the embassy."

  There was a long pause as Rashid contemplated whether to simply put down the phone. "Why are you calling me?" he eventually asked, his voice dripping with suspicion.

  "Rashid, is there any chance that we can meet in person? I have reason to believe that you are in considerable danger…"

  Another long pause ensued, and Chloe anxiously debated whether or not to start talking again – fearing he might simply just end the call if she did so.

  "So?" came a long-suffering sigh, finally, along with an unhelpful single word answer.

  "Sir, I'm calling to warn you – you're in danger," Chloe begged. "We need to –."

  Rashid cut her off. "You don't understand my meaning, Chloe – I'm always in danger. What makes this time any different? And, besides, why should I trust you?"

  "I don't know how I can prove to you what I have to say," Chloe replied slowly, "but can we meet somewhere public? Just for a few minutes," she hastened to add. "If you don't believe what I have to say, then by all means, go…"

  "Oxford Street. Opposite Topman. One hour." Click.

  * * *

  "CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ARE ALREADY UP," the cab driver said, shaking his head. "It gets earlier and earlier every year – what's the world coming to, eh?"

  Distracted, Chloe didn't catch it all, but agreed nonetheless. It seemed easier, and the man was certainly up in arms about that particular perceived injustice.

  "And another thing," the man continued – seemingly unaware of Chloe's disinterest, "who's paying for them?" He banged his hands angrily against the steering wheel. "That's what I want to know. It better not be my tax money, that's all I have to say."

  Chloe was quite sure that, in fact, wasn't all he had to say – but was in a distracted enough mood that she engaged with the angry cab driver almost by accident. "Pay for what?" she asked, innocently enough.

  "The lights!" her driver exclaimed. "Weren't you listening?"

  "Oh, sorry. Long day – you know?" Chloe replied, in an attempt to mollify him as best as she could. "Must've switched off!"

  "Don't worry about it," the man replied with an easy smile, his appetite for conversation seemingly undimmed by Chloe's lukewarm response to his entreaties. "I've been up since five, me, just driving around."

  Chloe had always hated these conversations. What on earth was she supposed to say to that? There was small talk, and then there was tiny talk – and this definitely felt as though it fit in the latter category.

  "Five? That's awful," she said, just to fill the time. "I don't know how you manage it." She did, of course – she worked the same hours all the time, too, but she'd long ago realized that in situations like this, it was just best to let the other person do most of the talking – that's what they usually wanted to do anyway.

  The driver turned around to look at Chloe, taking his eye off the traffic, and Chloe surreptitiously grasped her seatbelt slightly tighter. "I'll let you in on a little secret."

  "Shouldn't you be, you know, looking at the road?" Chloe said nervously.

  "Oh, don't you worry about that." The man chuckled, not putting Chloe's mind at ease at all. "I know these roads like the back of my hand."

  Chloe wanted to say, but didn't: Yeah, but the back of your hand is precisely what I don't want to see if we end up crashing! Instead, she occupied herself by staring out the window, willing the journey to be over.

  "Anyway, like I was saying – the trick is having a kettle by your bedside. I set my alarm for 4:30, wake up, make a coffee, drink it, then go back to bed."

  "How does that help anything?" Chloe asked, intrigued in spite of her better judgment. "You're just going back to sleep."

  "Oh, and that's where you're wrong!" The man scoffed. "Ever heard of caffeine?" he asked, as though he was the first explorer to have discovered the bean.

  "Of course…"

  "Alright, no need to get shirty with me ‘luv," the man replied in a broad cockney accent with an offended look on his face. "I'm only trying to help."

  "I'm sorry…" Chloe offered with a long-suffering sigh. "You were saying?"

  "I was indeed." The driver preened. "As I was saying," he said, swerving to avoid hitting the back of a big red London bus that he'd somehow missed, and almost sending Chloe toppling over in the process, "you go back to bed, tuck yourself into your covers, and wait. And when the caffeine kicks in, and believe me –," he turned his head again, "it will, that's when you get out of bed ready to start the day."

  "Oh," Chloe replied in a false, high tone, "that's a great idea. Just over here on the right is great, thanks," she said, indicating he should pull over. She was only at Bond Street, but decided that – for the sake of her sanity – she could probably walk the last half mile.

  "You sure?" the driver said, surprised. "Only it's no bother…"

  "Perfectly," Chloe replied. "I'm just going to nip into the shop over the road. I –. I forgot I needed to go in."

  "Right you are," the cab driver replied, swiftly pulling in to the side of the street. "That'll be £13.50, please."

  Chloe fished around in her purse. "Here's fifteen. Keep the change."

  "Miss, you're a right angel, you are." The driver beamed, quickly forgetting he’d ever been angry with her as she stepped out of the black cab.

  "Don't worry about it," Chloe replied, firmly closing the door on the conversation, and walking off.

  18

  Hands stuffed into her pockets, woolly hat pulled down and collar pulled up to ward against the biting chill of the winter wind that was blustering its way down Oxford Street, tyrannizing shoppers and bowling over small children like a tornado through a Mi
dwestern town, Chloe paced up and down in front of the bustling Topman in the middle of London's busiest shopping street.

  "Where are you?" she hissed under her breath, checking her wristwatch for the thousandth time. She'd been ten minutes early, but he was now at least twenty minutes late, and she was getting fed up of watching harried looking mothers weighed down by their Christmas purchases dragging badly behaved children behind them. And more than that, she was nervous – nervous that Rashid had somehow already been caught by his pursuers. Nervous that she had failed him.

  "Walk with me," she heard a familiar voice to say to the side of her. "Don't look at me, just walk."

  Satisfied that it was indeed Rashid, and relaxed now that she knew he was at least alive, Chloe allowed him to thread his arm between hers, and lead her forward.

  "Where have you been?" she hissed. "I thought you were…" She broke off.

  "Dead?" Rashid replied, humor creeping into his voice. "Not yet, anyway."

  "I didn't mean that," Chloe said, a bit embarrassed.

  "You did. Don't worry about it," Rashid reassured her. "You're not used to this."

  "And you are?" Chloe asked.

  "They've been chasing me a lot longer than you…" he replied. "You get used to it. I had to make sure you weren't being followed."

  "I'm not, I mean I wasn't…" Chloe began, flustered, as Rashid guided the pair of them deftly through the crowds of shoppers walking in the opposite direction. "You'd have no idea, that's how good they are. But you're right. You weren't followed."

  Chloe breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God. Where are we going?" she asked as Rashid guided them into a small alleyway leading down, she presumed, into Soho.

  "Nowhere," he replied, bringing them to a halt. "Not yet, anyway. I apologize, Chloe, but I've got to do this."

  "What do you mean?" she began, before his meaning became abundantly clear. "What are you doing?" she asked defiantly, raising her voice as Rashid's hands roamed uninvited across her entire body. "What the hell are you doing?"

  Rashid sank to his haunches, patting Chloe's legs down in the process. "There. We. Go." he said, punctuating each word with breath before standing up.

  Chloe glared at the presumption of the man, fixing him with a deathly glare. "Who the hell said you could do that? Did you think I was carrying a knife or something?"

  Rashid didn't say anything for a second, just held out his arm for her to take again.

  "I'm not going anywhere with you until you give me an explanation," she said, putting her foot down.

  "I had to check you weren't wearing a wire," Rashid replied, hanging his head slightly in shame.

  "You could have just asked," Chloe said hotly.

  Rashid just looked at her. "It's my life on the line, Chloe. Coming here was a risk in itself."

  Chloe deflated. "I'm sorry. I just wasn't – expecting that, that's all."

  "Come on, we should go. It's best to keep moving," Rashid replied, offering her his arm once again. She took it, leaning into his shoulder for warmth – it was quickly becoming apparent that the old Adidas tracksuit she'd chosen wasn't sufficient protection against the cold November wind.

  "Now, tell me," Rashid said, "why did you call me?"

  Chloe considered for a second how to answer the question – debating whether or not to tell him everything she knew. She decided that was the only option – he struck her as the kind of man who might be suspicious enough of her story, should she hold anything back, to simply run off then and there, and she couldn't risk that.

  "Just after you came to the embassy earlier," Chloe began slowly, "I was playing on my phone in the entranceway and I happened to hear a conversation I wasn't supposed to."

  "Oh?" Rashid said, prodding her for more information.

  "You've heard of one of the men Prince Tariq brought over with him, haven't you – Khalid?" Chloe said.

  "As I said earlier, I know of him." Rashid nodded. "Not a lot, enough to know he's a nasty man. One best avoided."

  "Precisely," Chloe agreed. "I overheard him talking with someone – I don't know who – about the man from the television. I can only think that he was talking about you."

  "Makes sense," Rashid agreed. "And what was he saying, might I ask?"

  "Nothing good, unfortunately," Chloe said sorrowfully. "He ordered whoever he was talking to, to start preparing a hit on your life. That was all I overheard, but it seemed pretty serious, so I spoke to Tariq about it –."

  "You did what?" Rashid grilled her angrily. "If you'd told me that, I wouldn't have come here."

  "Why not?" Chloe asked, surprised at Rashid's sudden vehemence – she'd never seen this side of him before, and it was faintly scary. "You can trust him."

  "Can I?" Rashid hissed in reply. "You know who his father is, don't you?" he asked.

  "Vaguely…" Chloe replied. She knew that Tariq's father was important, but she didn't know precisely what he did.

  "He's the Defense Minister. I guarantee that if Khalid is comfortable enough to order someone to try and take my life – on foreign soil no less – then he's had orders from higher up himself. He's just a pawn, he wouldn't take the risk on his own back."

  "But Khalid is in the Interior Ministry, not the Defense Ministry, isn't he?" Chloe asked.

  They stopped in an empty side street, Chloe grateful for the respite from the piercing chill of the wind, as Rashid paced up and down in anger. "Interior, Defense – it doesn't matter, they’re all the same," he finally hissed. "There's no way Tariq's father doesn't know about it. And if he does – then what about his son?"

  "No," Chloe protested vigorously. "Tariq wouldn't do that. I trust him – completely," she emphasized.

  "And that's supposed to be enough for me too, is it?" Rashid asked mockingly. "Are you sure you know what you've stumbled into here, Chloe?"

  Chloe looked down at the floor, slightly ashamed of her lack of knowledge, and mulled over the situation. "Okay," she began. "So if you don't come with me, where are you going to go? Are you safe?"

  "No," Rashid admitted, it seemed almost sheepishly to Chloe. "I can't go back to the apartment I was living in – they'll know about it. And I have no money."

  "None?"

  "Well, a few pounds," Rashid replied, pulling out an old brown leather wallet, "but that's not going to get me very far."

  "So you're in a bit of a quandary, aren't you?" Chloe asked.

  "I'll manage," Rashid replied proudly. "I always have before."

  Chloe saw that she wasn't going to convince him that she represented a better path to safety than trusting his experience without giving him some incentive, or changing the rules of the game. Suddenly, she had a brainwave.

  "Have you ever heard of Nabil Rouhani?" she asked quietly, hoping the name would ring a bell.

  Rashid turned his head, stopped his pacing and stared at Chloe. "No," he mused quietly. "Surely not?"

  Chloe nodded.

  "Your father?" Rashid asked wonderingly. "How is it I didn't know?"

  Chloe realized that – at least briefly – she had gained the upper hand. "He keeps himself under the radar," she said. "He doesn't go on national television like you…" she continued with a wry grin.

  "There's something to be said for that, I suppose," Rashid grinned. "But I had no idea he was in London. No one's heard from him in years…"

  "That's the way he likes it," Chloe replied. "It's just – safer. For everyone. So, do you trust me now?"

  "I trust you won't be handing me into the police, at least," Rashid smiled. "But I still don't like the fact that you're working alongside Prince Tariq. I don't trust him."

  "Well, how about we compromise?" Chloe asked. "We go to my father's house – it's safe, and you can hide out there. As far as I know, no one should be able to link you with me, and even if they did, I can't see why they'd go to his place, especially when I've got an entire hotel I could hide you in…"

  Rashid took a few seconds to mull over the proposition in
his head. It didn't take him long to decide. "Okay, let's go. But promise me one thing, Chloe."

  "What is it?" Chloe asked.

  "Don't tell Tariq where we're going. You might trust him, but I don't – at least not yet."

  "Fine," Chloe replied immediately. It was a small sacrifice to make to secure the man's safety. "Come on, let's go."

  19

  "We're here," Chloe said, craning her neck to look behind her as she reversed into the last parking space left in front of the neat, mock Tudor family house on the outskirts of London. Rashid had been drifting in and out of sleep for the last twenty minutes of the journey, and hadn't been as good company as Chloe might have hoped, but at least he was safe.

  "Wha –?” Rashid exclaimed, jolted out of his sleep by the shuddering motion of the car as the little engine struggled to reverse it smoothly up the slight slope leading up to the house. "Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I'd dropped off."

  "Don't worry about it. I didn't call ahead, so don't be surprised if – well, they are," Chloe apologized. "I didn't want to risk anyone monitoring our calls."

  "Good," Rashid said, smiling. "I'd much rather you did that than take risks with our safety…"

  Chloe smiled. That had very much been her ambition. She pulled up the handbrake, locking the car to the ground, and unclicked her seatbelt. "We going?" she asked, since Rashid didn't seem to have moved.

  "Oh, yes," he replied, shaking his head to get rid of the cobwebs. "I think I'm still a little sleepy."

  They stepped out into the cold November air, and Chloe once again regretted her choice of garment. She cast a critical eye over her parents’ front yard, examining it in a different manner now she was coming with a guest. Not, she thought, that he had anywhere else to go.

  The house was neat, tidy and well maintained, but there was no mistaking the fact that it was in a rundown area. It hadn't always been that way – when Chloe had grown up here, it was still a neighborhood in which parents were more than happy to let their kids out for the day, free to play with other neighborhood kids in the streets. Something happened about a decade ago, and things started changing – it was as though a light switch had been clicked off, and neighbors stopped taking care of their properties.